[Photo: Ben Purdy]If you’ve played Minecraft as I have, you’ve probably spent countless hours making a mega mansion, accidentally burning it down, and then building a castle or cowering in fear of The Neather. Now you can do block-breaking-with-a-stick in real-life.

Ben Purdy, a freelance Web developer, hooked up a projector system to display a Minecraft block onto a cardboard box. The projector can make the box look like a block of wood, iron, obsidian, or all of your favorite Minecraft elements.

The block is also animated to look as though it’s breaking apart and chipping away when hit. The box is fitted with a piezo element--the same material that can turn any kind of kinetic energy into electricity--that reacts to impact and sends a signal to the Arduino control board. The Arduino communicates to a PC, queuing the animation and particle effects.